The consulting engagement I’m working on is great. It takes advantage of a hard-to-find combination of different skills and experiences, and I’m having lots of fun. I’m glad I can help make a difference.

What do I want to do when it wraps up in around three months? I’m leaning towards experimenting with concentrating on some projects, which means not committing to any large, regular chunks of outside work. The Quantified Self conference in September will give me lots of reasons to work on Quantified Awesome. I’ll probably harvest enough ideas from it to be busy for quite a while afterwards.

I keep thinking about writing a book, too. If I clear the space for it, dedicate the time to it, then I’ll have some clear answers. Either I’ll emerge with a book (the first book is often the hardest, they say; after that, you know you can write), or I’ll know that I’m not yet in the right space for writing a book, and maybe I’ll have an idea of what I need to work on before I am.

I haven’t had such a large chunk of time to myself in a while, structured and directed mostly by me. The closest I can think of was the time after I returned from my technical internship in Japan and before I left for my master’s degree in Canada. Fortunately, I blogged back then too, so I can try to remember what I did and what it felt like.

March 2005: Spoke at a conference, worked on open source, practised poi April: Worked on open source, spent lots of time with family May: Worked on open source, wrote flash fiction, wrote about hipster PDAs (index cards) June: Took driving lessons, worked on open source, wrote flash fiction, moved to Canada

Right! Open source, that was what I was focusing on – that, and spending time with family, and exploring productivity tips. I’ve been working on far less open source than I thought I would be, but that’s because I’ve been focusing on non-programming things like writing and drawing. It was fun working on open source. I was maintaining Planner Mode (another organizer for Emacs) at the time, and I had a lot of fun working with the community. Time to re-subscribe to mailing lists and see if I can stay sharp by helping out.

That should be a good balance, eh? Writing and drawing to exercise creativity and share what I know, Quantified Awesome and open source software so that I can make better tools. Should be fun. For the business side of things, I might explore e-books and icon design as a way to use the writing and drawing skills I’ll be developing. Quantified Awesome and open source software might be more of a stretch for business, but let’s see where that takes me.

By that point, I’ll have been consulting for six months. I’ll probably give this self-directed learning and working a try for six months as well, and we’ll see how other factors influence our scheduling.